Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4450372" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Strategic Review 6: February 1976 For the first time, this issue remains almost the same in format to the previous one. However, but the matters within feel more significant somehow. Its the first issue that feels like business as usual, in a way. The organisational hassles of previous issues have become more manageable, which means they can actually get more stuff done. Much of this can probably be credited to their new member of staff Tim Kask, who takes over editing, leaving Gary to concentrate on the creative stuff. Good for them. Contained within: Alignment starts its change from the single law/chaos (with law strongly associcated with good and chaos with evil) axis, to the nuanced field of morals and ethics that we know and love (or in many cases hate <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) from every subsequent edition until the latest. (grumble mutter mutter) There's still some serious kinks in it. There's only 5 proper alignments, with true neutrality presented as rare, and primarily only inhabited by druids, animals, and other amoral creatures. Meanwhile, the other alignments get a more complex grading that never caught on, with 16 different ratings of good/evil and 22 of law/chaos that all have proper  nouns rather than numbers, and allow you to move up and down gradually. Elysium is the plane of ultimate chaotic good, while Humanity in Gygax's mind is a largely lawful race, not the unaligned occupiers of every alignment equally or mostly neutral with a significant minority of other alignments (depending on who you listen to) they would later be presented as. As someone who takes great interest in questions of both game and real world ethical constructs, this is very interesting stuff indeed, worthy of a thread in itself. One of the reasons I started this was to find forgotten gems that show the alternate ways the game could have gone, and this system makes me want to run a campaign featuring it's quirks and the logical extensions of those quirks as strong features. A review of fanzines. We get a shout-out to Games Workshop, still distributing RPG's themselves at this point, and another annoying rating system using titles rather than numbers, yet is still effectively a numerical rating system. Our first piece of actual fiction. The quest for the vermillion volume by Rob Kuntz. We get a case of wizard that is aware of modern day earth pop culture via their plane scrying/hopping antics (something I seem to remember Ed Greenwood becoming very fond of in his Eliminster tales later on. ) In less than 2 pages it manages to be a fairly entertaining little story, in which an elf is very much not a mysterious uberbeing but instead gets outclassed and humiliated at every turn. A piece pimping Fight in the skies, another wargame. A list of DMs, to help people find a game. The kind of thing that would be handled by the internet now much faster and more conveniently. Makes me vaguely curious how many of these people are still alive, at the same address, and gaming. Not that I'm gonna get on a plane and try and find out, as that would just be creepy. Bards! Oh yes, We're cooking with class bloat now. While they don't have the weird prerequisites to get into the class that they will in 1st ed AD&D, and the ability score requirements are less stringent and absolute, they are otherwise pretty similar in most respects, with about half strength thieving and magic-user (not druid, for some reason, despite their social connection being explicitly spelled out) abilities, decent fighting skills, plus their own lore and charm abilities, and the odd college system where they get a new title every 3 levels. Unlike the classes introduced in previous issues, they go all the way to 25th level, and get extensive detail on their followers. Like rangers, they probably are a bit overpowered, especially as they lack the strong behavioural restrictions rangers have to put up with. The various magical instruments that correspond with the colleges get introduced here as well, which is convenient. Optional nerves rule for boot hill. Seems like another case of extra modifiers that would add realism at the expense of fun and speed of play. Sage Advice gets its name, and becomes a formal column. Only small so far, and not in the answers to letters format that would become more familiar, but still fulfilling the same basic function. Another familiar refrain, that that modern games are too big and complex for the casual gamer, and that their new game (Ancient conquest) cuts through all that and combines simplicity with emergent complexity. To which I am torn between smirking and sighing, knowing how much D&D will bloat over coming decades. This is a lot more interesting than the last issue, and presents a lot of stuff that would have controversial reprecussions in the future. While still tiny, they're now making those tentative steps towards becoming a proper professional organization producing prolific amounts of product. (use a pop shield if saying that into a microphone <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ) Which is enjoyable to see.</blockquote>

Verification